Underbelly: The Art of Slowing Down™ is a non-verbal somatic practice (embodied movement/meditation) where we reclaim our slow in a fast and overwhelming world. Our dominant culture survives on speed, which keeps problematic and oppressive structures in place at the devastating cost of our well-being and planetary health. Underbelly is a somatic response to the loss of slowness and spaciousness in modernity's urgent over-culture drowning in climate collapse, AI threat, technological addiction/incessant stimulation, diseased capitalism and polarization, as well as historical nervous system trauma from continuing racism, colonialism, and patriarchy. It's time to acknowledge that we are standing at a terrifying precipice. Instead of pushing through injury or confusion, we cultivate a willingness to know things as they stand. It's time to surrender the rush and instead, show up with our heartbreak to encounter what is becoming. It's time to dismantle the hurry and have a conversation with the present moment.
This practice gives us permission (versus instruction) to explore the art of slowing down with ourselves, each other, and our current environment. There is space to roam in our inner worlds, metabolize our emotions, nurture empathy and intuition, and develop an intimate relationship with our bodies and the world around us. We practice being suspended in what we don't know yet- listening to the intelligence of life and yielding to our innate timing without pushing, imposing, controlling, or fixing. Room is made for nuance, complexity and paradox. Our individuation and togetherness are felt in a group field—deepening our presence and attunement with one another, co-regulating and centering our nervous systems, being held, witnessed, considered, and noticed exactly as we are. We meet ourselves AS IS, without grasping for more, escaping, transcending, or resigning. We re-learn what it is to be relational instead of transactional. To commune instead of consume. To be of service instead of extractive. To rest back into more vastness and organicity, releasing tight circuits of linearity, programming and conditioning we've inherited or been entrained to. Spend quality time with your body, breath, and being. Come back to foundations and your native rhythms/movements. Sink back into reverence. Voyage beneath the surface of our fast culture, and dive into a slow sanctuary for unearthing what is alive, tender, and honest for you in every moment.
This experience is not a solution, method, workshop or teaching of tools. It is not an ecstatic dance, contact improv jam or cuddle party. It is a somatically driven experimental space that supports bodily intelligence, nervous system co-regulation, ample rest, and radical self/community care. We incrementally and progressively nourish the foundational fabric of our humanity and strengthen the connective tissue of how we relate as is disappearing with technology swiftly changing our brains. This work is not done through grand gestures or patterns of immediacy, but rather, subtle...steady...patient...little steps. Every Underbelly experience varies depending on what is alive in the group field at that given time. All movement forms are welcome (authentic/personal movement, sensory/somatic movement, movement with others etc). So is resting, pausing, meditating, stillness, witnessing, observing, doing nothing etc. Participants may explore being solo and/or being with others in the form of negative/peripheral/proximal space (connection without physical touch). This gives people time to feel what is energetically alive in the spaces between us so we can ground into our own experience and not unconsciously spiral into dominant social/attachment/movement habits. *Underbelly has historically included touch as an option, but now we are in a season of studying what comes before it.
No prior experience necessary, just an open mind/heart.
Music: emotional, slow, deep, meditative, experimental, film scores, nature sounds, ambient, soulful, silent, and live.
When/Where:
Join the mailing list to get all the invites!
***Please note: Underbelly will take a pause at the end of 2024 as Amy transitions to NYC to begin Underbelly there and prepares a team to continue Underbellys in the Bay Area. Timing TBA.
***Zoom Underbelly likely to begin again. TBA.
Insight Timer app/ YouTube sessions are now available! Follow, subscribe, share :)
What to Expect:
1) Arrival (container will CLOSE 15 min after start time, please show up on time! Leaving early is permitted): This is a time to unwind on your own and find your way into your body.
2) 40 minute facilitated opening (guided somatic meditation, helping the body have a conversation with the present moment)
3) Deep dive (a time for your own body to guide you while immersed in music)
4) Facilitated closing (closing meditation and simply being with one another in the quiet)
5) Please read the Underbelly Code of Conduct and Logistics here
Contribution
~Sliding scale: $25-$30 (option to pay at the door)
~No one turned away for lack of funds
~Ways to contribute:
1) Venmo: @amy-rogg (last 4 phone digits 0330). When sessions are at The Alembic, you'll pay them: @BerkeleyAlembic
2) Paypal: payment link here
3) Cash
4) Support us on Patreon
Health Protocol:
~Please do not attend if you have been exposed or have symptoms.
~Rapid/antigen testing always encouraged.
~Mask as needed.
About the Creator:
Amy Rogg (she/her) is an activator and nurturer of the human spirit. She is half Taiwanese/half white of Jewish descent, born in Denver Colorado and raised mostly in the Bay Area. She is the conduit, creator, and facilitator of Underbelly: The Art of Slowing Down. Amy has a B.A. in television/film production and studied acting/improv in Los Angeles. She has led yoga (E-RYT 500) and meditation for over a decade, is a certified herbalist, and has been facilitating/engaging in somatic and relational movement practices since 2012. She has re-located from the Bay Area to New York City.
Some of her inspirations: nature/the Wild, Hakomi, Continuum, The Artist's Way, Movement Liberation, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Gabor Maté, Stephen Jenkinson, Jacob Collier, Jonna Jinton, Paul Bergner, Heather Luna, Anna Halprin, Resmaa Menakem, Sarah Blondin, Bill Plotkin, Marc-André Leclerc, Jeong Kwan, Yat Malmgren, David Whyte, Qi Gong, Yoga, GAGA, Contact Improvisation/Underscore, Fusion/Microfusion, Blindfolded Contact, Open Floor, Soul Motion, Dancing Freedom, 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance, romantic relationships, and her parents (mama in spirit).
My creative journey is to safely and successfully work with lifelong wounds, turning them into the very engines of my artistic and professional progression; portals of expression and authenticity, rather than fixed scars to work around or deny or escape.
Thank You's (to the people/places that have been instrumental to the spirit, birth and life of Underbelly!): Ashley Apple, Jan Verweij, Jackie Cheng, Michael Ducott, Derek van der Schroeff, Little Boxes Theater, Ellen Webb Studio, Kathyrn Devaney and the Berkeley Alembic, Tyler Alterman, Evan Kelso, Geo Morjane, Brandon Lee, Eva Smith, Shane Dyer, Shannon Sahaja, Kelsey Wunderle, Jordan Parker and all Underbelly collaborators/volunteers/musicians over the years!
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This practice gives us permission (versus instruction) to explore the art of slowing down with ourselves, each other, and our current environment. There is space to roam in our inner worlds, metabolize our emotions, nurture empathy and intuition, and develop an intimate relationship with our bodies and the world around us. We practice being suspended in what we don't know yet- listening to the intelligence of life and yielding to our innate timing without pushing, imposing, controlling, or fixing. Room is made for nuance, complexity and paradox. Our individuation and togetherness are felt in a group field—deepening our presence and attunement with one another, co-regulating and centering our nervous systems, being held, witnessed, considered, and noticed exactly as we are. We meet ourselves AS IS, without grasping for more, escaping, transcending, or resigning. We re-learn what it is to be relational instead of transactional. To commune instead of consume. To be of service instead of extractive. To rest back into more vastness and organicity, releasing tight circuits of linearity, programming and conditioning we've inherited or been entrained to. Spend quality time with your body, breath, and being. Come back to foundations and your native rhythms/movements. Sink back into reverence. Voyage beneath the surface of our fast culture, and dive into a slow sanctuary for unearthing what is alive, tender, and honest for you in every moment.
This experience is not a solution, method, workshop or teaching of tools. It is not an ecstatic dance, contact improv jam or cuddle party. It is a somatically driven experimental space that supports bodily intelligence, nervous system co-regulation, ample rest, and radical self/community care. We incrementally and progressively nourish the foundational fabric of our humanity and strengthen the connective tissue of how we relate as is disappearing with technology swiftly changing our brains. This work is not done through grand gestures or patterns of immediacy, but rather, subtle...steady...patient...little steps. Every Underbelly experience varies depending on what is alive in the group field at that given time. All movement forms are welcome (authentic/personal movement, sensory/somatic movement, movement with others etc). So is resting, pausing, meditating, stillness, witnessing, observing, doing nothing etc. Participants may explore being solo and/or being with others in the form of negative/peripheral/proximal space (connection without physical touch). This gives people time to feel what is energetically alive in the spaces between us so we can ground into our own experience and not unconsciously spiral into dominant social/attachment/movement habits. *Underbelly has historically included touch as an option, but now we are in a season of studying what comes before it.
No prior experience necessary, just an open mind/heart.
Music: emotional, slow, deep, meditative, experimental, film scores, nature sounds, ambient, soulful, silent, and live.
When/Where:
Join the mailing list to get all the invites!
***Please note: Underbelly will take a pause at the end of 2024 as Amy transitions to NYC to begin Underbelly there and prepares a team to continue Underbellys in the Bay Area. Timing TBA.
***Zoom Underbelly likely to begin again. TBA.
Insight Timer app/ YouTube sessions are now available! Follow, subscribe, share :)
What to Expect:
1) Arrival (container will CLOSE 15 min after start time, please show up on time! Leaving early is permitted): This is a time to unwind on your own and find your way into your body.
2) 40 minute facilitated opening (guided somatic meditation, helping the body have a conversation with the present moment)
3) Deep dive (a time for your own body to guide you while immersed in music)
4) Facilitated closing (closing meditation and simply being with one another in the quiet)
5) Please read the Underbelly Code of Conduct and Logistics here
Contribution
~Sliding scale: $25-$30 (option to pay at the door)
~No one turned away for lack of funds
~Ways to contribute:
1) Venmo: @amy-rogg (last 4 phone digits 0330). When sessions are at The Alembic, you'll pay them: @BerkeleyAlembic
2) Paypal: payment link here
3) Cash
4) Support us on Patreon
Health Protocol:
~Please do not attend if you have been exposed or have symptoms.
~Rapid/antigen testing always encouraged.
~Mask as needed.
About the Creator:
Amy Rogg (she/her) is an activator and nurturer of the human spirit. She is half Taiwanese/half white of Jewish descent, born in Denver Colorado and raised mostly in the Bay Area. She is the conduit, creator, and facilitator of Underbelly: The Art of Slowing Down. Amy has a B.A. in television/film production and studied acting/improv in Los Angeles. She has led yoga (E-RYT 500) and meditation for over a decade, is a certified herbalist, and has been facilitating/engaging in somatic and relational movement practices since 2012. She has re-located from the Bay Area to New York City.
Some of her inspirations: nature/the Wild, Hakomi, Continuum, The Artist's Way, Movement Liberation, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Gabor Maté, Stephen Jenkinson, Jacob Collier, Jonna Jinton, Paul Bergner, Heather Luna, Anna Halprin, Resmaa Menakem, Sarah Blondin, Bill Plotkin, Marc-André Leclerc, Jeong Kwan, Yat Malmgren, David Whyte, Qi Gong, Yoga, GAGA, Contact Improvisation/Underscore, Fusion/Microfusion, Blindfolded Contact, Open Floor, Soul Motion, Dancing Freedom, 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance, romantic relationships, and her parents (mama in spirit).
My creative journey is to safely and successfully work with lifelong wounds, turning them into the very engines of my artistic and professional progression; portals of expression and authenticity, rather than fixed scars to work around or deny or escape.
Thank You's (to the people/places that have been instrumental to the spirit, birth and life of Underbelly!): Ashley Apple, Jan Verweij, Jackie Cheng, Michael Ducott, Derek van der Schroeff, Little Boxes Theater, Ellen Webb Studio, Kathyrn Devaney and the Berkeley Alembic, Tyler Alterman, Evan Kelso, Geo Morjane, Brandon Lee, Eva Smith, Shane Dyer, Shannon Sahaja, Kelsey Wunderle, Jordan Parker and all Underbelly collaborators/volunteers/musicians over the years!